Accepting credit card payments without a merchant account

yet another payment question

[hasanali]

Hi
I know this type of question must have been discussed here many times, and I did try to search for them, but I could not find the answer.

I have been looking into ecommerce customer payments, and have concluded that there are 2 ways of collecting money from the customer:

1 - apply for a merchant accout and sign up with a payment gateway ( like worldpay)
2 - Allow customers to pay by Paypal (but customers would have to have an account with Paypal)

Option 1 is too expensive and option 2 is not very professional, so is there a 3rd option?

My question is: How can I accept credit card payments WITHOUT having a merchant account. I simply want a service that I can use on my site to collect customer's credit card details > the Payment Service Provider processes the card details > I get the money.

I do not want to apply for a merchant account since it will be toooooo expensive for me.

Is there any payment service provider that can charge me monthly or a transaction fee, and process the card details on my behalf. I have done alot of searching on the net, but I simply cannot find one. Is there any such service provider.

kind regards

[pp_rb]

Actually, if you offered PayPal for processing payments, your customers would not be required to have an account. PayPal's Account Optional checkout allows customers to pay with a credit card without creating an account.

[jwolthuis]

A third option for US-based sites is to sign-up for PayPal Website Payments Pro. PayPal acts as your gateway and merchant account in one.

Advantages of Website Payments Pro include:
- Fixed discount rate, regardless of credit card brand (AmEx, Visa, etc) or card type (commercial purchasing card, international, etc).
- Payments settle to your PayPal account immediately.
- Easy qualification for new businesses.
- One monthly fee, not separate gateway / merchant account fees.

Disadvantages include:
- AVS (address verification) is mandatory.
- If you're developing your own shopping cart, the SOAP-based, encrypted, digitally-signed messages required by their API are difficult to implement.

[hasanali]

Actually, I forgot to mention that I am based in UK, so currently, I will not be able to use Paypal Pro.

But I will check on this "PayPal's Account Optional checkout...."

Thnaks

[Essex_boy]

Try worldpay, 2checkout or ccavenue.com

[numnutz]

or if based in the UK and selling to UK only try Nochex at http://www.nochex.com/ It works with credit and debit cards.

Its supposed to be ok and it has a no Chargeback guarantee the punter does not need to sign up if the purchase is under £100 but the total cash a punter can spend with them in 24 hours is £300.00 total they claim that it will be world wide "real soon now" but they have been saying that for a year or so

nn :)

P.S. Sorry its for the UK only

[edited by: lorax at 11:53 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2005]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]

[hasanali]

Thanks for informing me about 2checkout.

They seem to be providing a service I am looking for. But I am not sure if they will take a UK customer.

thanks

[numnutz]

edit / Sorry though you replied about nochex / edit

They are for UK customers and UK credit/debit cards only. so You may still have to use PrayPal for overseas transactions.

nn :)